The Jack Ryan saga steps off the small screen and into the big arena. Directed by Andrew Bernstein, with a screenplay by Aaron Rabin and John Krasinski (working from a story by Noah Oppenheim and Krasinski himself), Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War lands as a 105-minute Amazon MGM Studios feature, rated R for violence and language, built around the characters Tom Clancy gave the world decades ago. Krasinski returns to the title role alongside Wendell Pierce, Michael Kelly, Max Beesley, JJ Feild, Douglas Hodge, Betty Gabriel and Sienna Miller, with Allyson Seeger, Krasinski and Andrew Form producing.
The premise is classic Clancy with a real-time pulse. Jack Ryan is reluctantly pulled back into the espionage world when an international covert mission unravels a deadly conspiracy and forces him to confront a rogue black-ops unit. The clock is ticking, lives hang on every minute, and Jack reunites with battle-tested CIA operative Mike November (Michael Kelly) and former CIA boss James Greer (Wendell Pierce). Their combined experience is the only edge they have against an enemy who anticipates every move. Backed by an unlikely new partner, the razor-sharp MI6 officer Emma Marlow (Sienna Miller), Jack and the team work through a treacherous web of betrayal and face a past they thought was long put to rest. It is the most personal, highest-stakes mission any of them have taken on.
For Candey+, this set of conversations carries something extra: these are exclusive interviews in Portugal, gathered as the film prepares for its global rollout. What follows is the cast and the director, in their own words, on the film, the relationships, the cities, the stunts, and the ideas that pushed them to bring Jack Ryan back to the screen.
John Krasinski as “Jack Ryan”
Krasinski is the architect here, returning as star, screenwriter and producer. His Jack Ryan has been refined across four seasons of television, and the feature gave him a chance to tighten the screws. The actor speaks with the affection of someone who built the character brick by brick and the energy of someone still discovering rooms inside it.
QUESTION: How does it feel to be back as Jack Ryan?
JOHN KRASINSKI: It feels amazing. Honestly, I think this is the most fun I’ve ever had playing the role. It’s been a totally different experience. The show was a different kind of storytelling; it was longform and took longer to shoot. With the movie, we feel like people know the characters, and we were able to have more fun with the traditional three-act structure.
QUESTION: What do you love about this character that made you want to step back into the role?
JOHN KRASINSKI: I always loved the idea that a Jack Ryan existed, that there was somebody who was human and decent and real out there on the front lines, being a true hero rather than someone with a cape or with superpowers. It’s inspiring that no matter what was going on in the world, good or bad, that there was someone fighting for justice and order.
QUESTION: What’s it been like adapting the series into a feature film?
JOHN KRASINSKI: We had the idea to do a film about two years ago because we wanted to tell more Jack Ryan stories, and we wanted to test the idea that if you made a story that was more combustible, that was a little bit shorter, could you get more out of it? I had a blast writing on it with Aaron. Aaron is incredible. And bringing it to life, it feels like what I grew up watching.
QUESTION: Where are we picking up with Jack in the feature film and can you bridge the time between when we last saw him?
JOHN KRASINSKI: Time-wise, the movie picks up a year and a half after Season 4. At the end of Season 4 Jack decides not to stay with the CIA, it’s been too much on him and he wants to go back to real life. And then he realizes, what is real life without the CIA? Because for him, real life is nothing if he can’t be of service, if he can’t be doing something to help and to progress the safety and security of the world. And so that’s where we start in the movie with Greer hoping to tempt Jack to come back. But he doesn’t quite tempt Jack back, he’s more so forced back in.
QUESTION: Talk a little bit about Jack and Greer’s story in the film.
JOHN KRASINSKI: My favorite part of doing this show is working with this cast. They are the absolute greatest actors. These are the most decent, kind, brilliant people I’ve ever known. For me, the love story of Jack Ryan has always secretly been Greer and Jack. It’s a brotherly love that has been brewing over the four seasons. There’s been a lot of love shared and there’s been a lot of lessons learned and teachings. At this point in their lives, they both feel pretty secure in their belief systems. And in this movie, you realize that those belief systems contradict. For the first time ever, we really get to see Jack and Greer fully explain how they feel and fully disagree with how things should be done.
QUESTION: Tell us about Michael Kelly and the character of Mike November in the film. What’s he been up to since we last saw him?
JOHN KRASINSKI: Michael Kelly was probably one of the greatest additions to the show we ever could have gotten. I remember he had just come off House of Cards when we offered him the part. And I genuinely thought there was no possible way we would get someone like him because he was so unbelievably good on that show. And for some reason, he jumped into the sandbox with us. He is the comic relief in the show because again, all the comedy comes from being genuine. It’s real, it’s honest. He’s so funny because of his commitment to Jack, to Greer, to the CIA, and also just a commitment to life. He lives life to the fullest.
Mike has always been there for Jack. When Jack gets into trouble, the only person that Greer knows is trustworthy enough to go protect Jack, is Mike November.
QUESTION: Introduce us to Sienna’s character, Emma.
JOHN KRASINSKI: Sienna Miller gives such strong, consistent performances in everything I’ve seen her in, she feels at the top of her game. I’ve been such a huge fan of hers for so long, and then had the wonderful fortune of becoming friends with her. At a dinner with friends, I asked if she’d ever be interested in doing Jack Ryan, and she said, yes. Right there I immediately came up with the part. I don’t think I could’ve written that role without knowing she’d be the one to play it.
Her involvement inspired me to come up with this idea of MI6 and CIA. She’s so wonderful in this role and is a really wonderful partner for Jack. At the end of the movie, you really see these two people who don’t get to share their lives with anyone. And so just the ability to share your life with someone is, in a way, a bond and a relationship that you can’t really break. And I personally hope to see that relationship again.
QUESTION: Can you talk a little bit about Crown’s character as well?
JOHN KRASINSKI: Max is just a livewire of a person. He’s so exciting. He’s so talented. He’s a musician. He’s an actor. He has a real joie de vivre. He’s just a wonderful, wonderful guy, which is totally antithetical to who Crown is. And yet one of the key things we were looking for, with Crown, is someone who is charming, someone who is pitching you an idea. If you’re gonna have a bad guy give the bad guy speech, you want to believe that it’s real, that it could be possible, and also that he has a point. Could the world be saved if you were willing to break the rules?
And I think that’s such a big idea these days; breaking the rules in order to get what you want is extremely tempting on all fronts. Jack Ryan is the only person left that is saying, I would be willing to not break the rules and still get what we want. And that’s put to the test in this movie.
QUESTION: In what ways have you upped the ante with the action sequences for this film?
JOHN KRASINSKI: In a lot of ways, we’ve upped the ante in every single facet of the storytelling. With long form storytelling, no matter how much action you have, there’s still eight hours of story you have to get through. So the action is spaced out throughout the season. In a movie, it’s that ticking time bomb feeling where the action sequences really dovetail into the story in a way that is more kinetic and frenetic and intense. I think in a way, our action sequences are better than they’ve ever been because we’re able to pack them into a tighter storyline.
QUESTION: What do you hope will resonate with audiences while watching this film?
JOHN KRASINSKI: I hope that people resonate with Jack Ryan for the same reasons that I did, which is that he is a real person on the front lines. It’s humbling to know there are people who are willing to put their life on the line and confront danger head on, and they’re willing to do that for us.
And the people who are brave enough to do that, well, they deserve a lot of thanks.
Wendell Pierce as “James Greer”
If Krasinski is the heart of the franchise, Pierce is its moral compass. The actor has shaped Greer into a man of granite principle, and the feature gives him room to put cracks in the granite. Pierce is also a working-class hero of American theater, and that texture seeps into every line.
QUESTION: How does it feel to be back as James Greer, and what is it that you love about this character that made you want to step into the role again?
WENDELL PIERCE: The thing I love about the character is trying to replicate the men that I’ve met in doing my research. The uniqueness of the character of being an officer in the Central Intelligence Agency at this rank, an African American officer. I’ve met several, and what drives them to become members of the agency, I think, is unique. A unique patriotism of, you know, making sure that the country is living up to what it says it’s living up to on paper, making sure we have a certain criteria of what we expect from the country and doing the things necessary to make that happen.
Coming back to the role, it’s just a great cast to work with, a great script to work with, and great locations, and the travel, and meeting other actors, the other actors who are going to be a part of the story is just really wonderful.
QUESTION: Why is now the right time to bring Jack Ryan back and why do it as a feature?
WENDELL PIERCE: I think as a feature, it really works because it just condenses the intensity of the story even more. We have a set few hours to tell this story, rather than over the course of the arc of episodes for a season. I think it’s the right time to always consider what your values are, especially when we have to deal with a world that is ever changing, a geopolitical world where we always have to realize what our value system is and challenge ourselves.
That’s the thing I love about my character. There’s at times moral ambiguity that means he can’t sit on the sidelines anymore. He has to make a real decision of exercising what his beliefs are and what his principles are. And I think we are in a time globally where we have to realize what our principles are and try to live up to them, and realize that there are those who do not have our best interest at heart. And do whatever we can to mitigate the negative impact that some people choose when it comes to how they live their lives in the world. So, we have to be ever vigilant and we also have to be strong in our principled beliefs. And when you look at a movie like this, it makes you reflect on what your principles are, whether you agree with a character or not, agree with a principle or not, and try to find your true north.
QUESTION: Tell us a little bit about the relationship between Jack and Greer in the film and how it develops.
WENDELL PIERCE: It was a sort of antagonistic relationship from the beginning because I was being punished for something I had done in the field and put back at headquarters and then we met. And while I think he’s a thorn in my side, I realize that he’s very smart and intuitive, a great analyst, and ultimately, a really great officer. But we have disagreements on when we think someone has gone too far or they haven’t.
I did not tell him exactly how he was going to be involved. I thought it was going to be something innocuous and simple, and plain. And he is dragged into the espionage and his life is in danger. And I betrayed a friendship because I never told him that in the beginning. And so, we have to go on a journey of reconciliation, really. And for me, a journey of redemption, redeeming myself in his eyes. And because he has pointed out to me that I cannot operate in a gray area, I have to make a decision and really follow my moral compass.
So, he challenges me as I challenge him. And that disagreement comes to a head, but ultimately, we have to work through it. And that’s what good friends do.
QUESTION: What is it like working with John Krasinski and Michael Kelly?
WENDELL PIERCE: When you work with people like that all over the world, you become family and getting back together is always a real sense of joy to work with everybody and a joy to do the work again and come to the characters again. You know, if anything you feel this great responsibility to get it right, you know. I don’t wanna be the one to drop the ball. But it’s really easy working with John and Mike because they are such good actors.
And I was telling John Krasinski, I was like, ‘Man, there’s a certain authenticity,’ and that he is always in the moment and that it is really hard not to be in the moment with him when playing against him or playing opposite him. He forces you to be truthful because he is so truthful and it doesn’t work if there’s a false moment from you. And it’s the same thing with Mike. He is very authentic, very in the moment. And that… that’s key to all good acting, being in the moment and being truthful and authentic.
QUESTION: What is it like working with Max Beesley?
WENDELL PIERCE: Max is one of the finest actors in the business today, so it’s very easy during the scene with him. He brings so much to it and he’s such a great musician as well.
QUESTION: Do you have a favourite scene to shoot that you’ve shot and why?
WENDELL PIERCE: My favourite scene is when Jack and Greer really come to a head. For me, that was a really challenging scene to play. But also, the action stuff on the streets and the driving, and explosions, and things like that, that’s fun to do in the streets. You’re in central London and, you know, thousands of people are watching and it’s really wonderful to see how much appreciation you get on the street while you’re holding up traffic.
QUESTION: What do you hope will resonate with audiences while watching this film?
WENDELL PIERCE: What a good action star I am. What I like about it is I’m a regular guy in an extraordinary situation, a regular man in an irregular situation. I’m an everyman, an ordinary man in an extraordinary situation. I hope that people take that away, go there, but by the grace of God, go I. You know, that’s what I would do in that situation. And I see how nervous he can be, how scared he can be, but also how confident he is in this… in the action, right?
Michael Kelly as “Mike November”
Mike November is the operator with the dry punchline, the friend you call when the night goes sideways. Kelly has spent years giving the character a sense of humour the Clancy universe rarely indulges, and the feature lets him stretch the gag and the gravity in equal measure. He talks about the work like a man who genuinely cannot believe his luck.
QUESTION: How’s it feel to be back as Mike November, and what is it about the character that made you want to step back into this role again?
MICHAEL KELLY: I feel fortunate every time I get to step into November’s shoes. He’s a lot of fun to be around. He’s a lot of fun to pretend to be. I love this character so much and I love what the character’s become over the years as opposed to how he started. It’s been a fun journey.
I love that Mike November has a sense of humour that you don’t typically see a lot in these kinds of shows. A lot of that is accredited to John helping me develop this character, what he’s become. He gained a sense of humour as the seasons went on, and that was a real treat.
QUESTION: Why is now the right time to bring Jack Ryan back?
MICHAEL KELLY: I mean, in my opinion, it’s always a great time to come back for Jack Ryan. It’s kind of been the response around the world too. People love it. And as far as doing it, it’s always a good time for me too, because we just love doing this show. We love making it. It’s a lot of fun that those relationships that you see are very real, and in real life we have those relationships. So, it’s a lovely place to be.
QUESTION: What’s it like being back with John and Wendell in the game?
MICHAEL KELLY: It’s just the best, man. I feel so fortunate, you know. John and Wendell both have become two of my dearest friends. I love them so much. And you know, we come to set and we laugh until we cry most days. With John, he’s just one of the funniest human beings you can be around. The stories are endless and fantastic, and side splittingly funny. And Wendell, we have a lot of fun. We’ve got all these wonderful places, and we go and we explore those places. It’s truly the best.
QUESTION: Tell us about working with Sienna Miller?
MICHAEL KELLY: We have Sienna Miller in our movie [LAUGHS]. For me, I’m like, oh my God, really? And John’s like, yeah, no, she wants to do it. I was like, oh my God, that’s amazing. ‘Cause we love her. And the way that Sienna, and I’m not speaking for Emma Marlow, her character, but I’m saying, first I wanna speak about Sienna because she is that amazing. She’s that wonderful, she’s that talented, she’s that beautiful. She’s all those things that people know her as. And then she just slid in with us, like we had been friends for, as long as I’ve been friends with John or Wendell or whatever. She fit right in on day one. It is a nice feeling to have, and how fortunate we are to have someone like her in our cast.
QUESTION: How did you find Dubai as a shooting location?
MICHAEL KELLY: I found it a very interesting city. It’s very city of the future. And those shots and those locations that we were able to use, the production value on this is insane, because you see these shots and you’re like, there’s the Burj Khalifa, [LAUGHS] there’s the Museum of the Future. And these buildings are spectacular, architectural wonders. We got to film at all of those places. And so, for the audience, you get to see Dubai in this film. While it was challenging at times, it was also, like I said, the production value just off the charts.
QUESTION: Did you have to get back into training for the fight sequences and weapons training?
MICHAEL KELLY: Yeah, you always have to brush up on your weapons training, especially because it changes so often. I made a conscious decision to stick with the way that I handled my weapon in particular because like Mike November, a lot of these guys, the special op guys who go on these missions and whatnot, who are retired, but they still go out and do things, they train up. But Mike November had a company, and he probably wasn’t training up every year. He wasn’t re-upping his, certainly not in the last year based on what happened with his character at the end of season 4. So, I was like, I’m gonna stick with it, I trained the new way. I liked it, but I love the old way. And so I stuck with my old way. I did lift more obviously to get ready for Mike, but I pulled a hamstring. I had a little pull on this one chasing a motorcycle. But it’s so much fun, man. You get to be a kid, you know. You get to do all this action. It’s like being a 14-year-old boy running around the backyard again and there’s nothing like that. And to feel that young is really nice.
QUESTION: What do you hope will resonate with audiences when they watch the film?
MICHAEL KELLY: I don’t know. I just want them to enjoy it. Whatever they take from it is what they take from it. For me, it’s just having a good time. And I think, and I feel like that’s what we always give audiences, is the ability to put your feet up and watch us and have a good time, go on the ride and have a good time.
Max Beesley as “Liam Crown”
Crown is the silver-tongued antagonist with a worldview Jack Ryan refuses to accept. Beesley is a musician-actor with a deep bench of work behind him, and the film hands him one of its showpiece sequences: a London car chase staged on real streets at full tilt. He gets technical about it, because the geography of the chase is part of the thrill.
QUESTION: Talk to us about the car chase sequence you have with Wendell Pierce?
MAX BEESLEY: We start at Old Naval College, which is where these vehicles have been blown up by my good self. This is exactly where they shot Patriot Games all those years ago with Harrison Ford and Anne Archer, Miranda Richardson, I think, and Sean Bean, so it’s quite special being there. There’s an ensuing car chase that occurs after this, which is probably about two and a half minutes long, and it’s beautifully, beautifully choreographed by our stunt coordinator, Lee Morrison. We go to Parliament Square, which was locked off for the weekend. Amazing. And then Wendell Pierce’s character, James Greer, catches up to me down Whitehall. We passed the Cenotaph; we passed Horse Guards parade. And then we’re into Ludgate Hill at St. Paul’s Cathedral. And so, it’s really quite a massively put together, beautifully choreographed car chase and lots of fun for the bits that I was able to do. And there were quite few actually, which was great.
As an actor, you always want to do the things that you think you are capable of doing. And I can drive quite well, my wife would argue with that, but I can drive quite well, and I think the stunt guys saw that on this and said, yeah, we’ll get him in. But my first day in the car I was with Martin Ivanoff, who is Matt Damon’s double on all the Bourne Supremacies, Bourne Identities, and also doubles for Daniel Craig on the Bond movies. He’s an incredible, incredible driver. And Lee said, just get in with Martin. Learn it, learn it. Just do a couple of runs with him. And I could hardly breathe on the first take. It was incredible watching him. So, I learned it anyway, and then they very kindly let me get in the car. The producers let me drive quite a bit of the car chase actually, which was very exciting.
QUESTION: Can you tell us about your experience working with the stunt team?
MAX BEESLEY: The great thing about working on this movie is we’ve got an incredibly talented British and European crew. Best of the best. Our stunt coordinator, Lee Morrison’s one of the best in the business. And our precision drivers, my double, Martin, is a phenomenal driver. And I’ve seen his work many times. He was Matt Damon’s double, he did a lot of work on The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, Casino Royale. He’s unbelievable.
QUESTION: Tell us about your experiences during production?
MAX BEESLEY: It’s been an amazing job and a great opportunity and lovely to work with everyone. And I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. What a wonderful crew, wonderful cast. And I think the movie’s gonna look incredible. Production value’s insane. Dubai was amazing, wasn’t it? And, you know, shutting off the streets of London for not one, but five weekends, I think: Trafalgar Square, St. Paul’s Ludgate Hill, Parliament, it’s unbelievable. It’s not been done for many, many years.
Sienna Miller as “Emma Marlow”
Emma Marlow is the franchise’s first true equal-and-opposite to Jack Ryan, an MI6 officer operating in the shadow of a mentor in trouble. Miller takes the role into territory she had not explored before: a closed, watchful, restrained presence carrying a heavy backstory. Her perspective on the film is the perspective of a newcomer who landed in a family already in mid-conversation.
QUESTION: Can you give us a brief description of your character and how she fits into the story?
SIENNA MILLER: Emma is an MI6 officer and she is a very covert, very smart, very tough woman in the field of espionage. Her mentor has got into a lot of trouble, and she’s been shadowing him without him knowing to try to figure out what’s going on. And that’s where she comes across Jack. And together they team up and figure the story out.
I think what I was most drawn to about her was her resilience and toughness and ability to not reveal an awful lot. It’s quite hard to play someone restrained. It’s not my nature. And so it’s been a challenge to kind of dial down whatever vulnerability or warmth I think I naturally have and try to have a tougher exterior. It’s something I haven’t really done before, but I’ve really enjoyed doing.
QUESTION: What attracted you to the story?
SIENNA MILLER: I think I’d wanted to work with John Krasinski for a long time, and we are friends outside of work. I’d wanted to do a big movie that people like to watch. I’ve been very drawn in my career to small, independent things, and I think I just felt ready to do something that felt flashy and fun and learn how to use weapons and fight. And the idea of playing an MI6 officer was really appealing and to be a part of a big fun franchise that people are very excited to see.
QUESTION: Tell us about your experience filming Jack Ryan?
SIENNA MILLER: It’s been fantastic from start to finish. I mean, like I said, I’m friends with John and meeting Michael Kelly, and really the three of us are a gang in this and we’ve laughed nonstop in spite of the fact that we’ve shot a lot of nights, and a lot of it is much more physical than I anticipated. It’s been incredible and to be able to come to work every day and have fun and tell an exciting story. And I got to meet an actual officer at MI6 who helped train me. But learning from these people whose job it is to do this, is really an exciting part of what I do and it’s been wonderful.
QUESTION: So can you discuss Jack and Emma’s dynamic?
SIENNA MILLER: So, the dynamic between Jack and Emma initially is very hostile from Emma’s perspective. She knows of him, but she’s not sure what side he’s on. And in our story, there are many plots and twists and turns and there’s a lot of disloyalty. And so, it’s not initially based on any sort of trust, and that’s something that’s earned throughout the film. Their dynamic is quite punchy and funny. There’s some banter between them. She kind of ribs him for some of his nerdiness and he takes it from her, but I think he’s constantly quite surprised by how forthcoming she is and tough. Eventually you sense that there’s the potential for these two to be really good friends. I think they really respect each other by the end of the film.
QUESTION: What was it like working with John Krasinski?
SIENNA MILLER: John is probably the most knowledgeable actor that I’ve ever worked with, and I think it comes from, well, not only his time on The Office, which was obviously an immense amount of work, but also being such an accomplished director and Jack Ryan being such a part of the fabric of who he is as an actor. It’s something he’s been working on for so long and he knows it inside out. But he understands filmmaking in a way that I’ve never bothered to, which is lenses and angles, and adapting performance for different moments in ways with weapons that I’m learning so much from him. He also, obviously, is one of the funniest people to ever walk the face of the earth, and I adore him.
So, from start to finish, John has not only been very inspiring, incredibly helpful, but also had me in fits of laughter, which is kind of my ideal co-star.
QUESTION: Tell us about working with Michael Kelly?
SIENNA MILLER: Michael is an actor that I’ve respected for so long and had dreamt of working with. He’s disarmingly kind and, again, funny. Him and John have a really fraternal relationship. I kind of felt like, would it be complicated to step in to play a part when they’ve all been working together for so many years on the show and will I feel like the new guy? And, and that was absolutely disbanded within the first five minutes of us crying with laughter because they’re both as childish as I can be. It’s a very new language for me, but they’ve both been completely supportive and wonderful and, and they’re both actors at the top of their game. It couldn’t be better.
QUESTION: Max Beesley plays Crown in the film. What was it like working with him?
SIENNA MILLER: Max is someone that I’ve known for a long time and we tried to work together a few times in the past and never quite managed it. Max is completely focused and committed and dedicated and brilliant at this part. And again, I think that this kind of thing is within his wheelhouse. He’s done a lot of work with weapons and in an action kind of environment, whereas I really have not. So, I’m learning from all of them. Every day.
QUESTION: Talk about the stunts and working with Lee Morrison and some of the training that you did.
SIENNA MILLER: Lee Morrison, I think in my experience, is the greatest stunt man in the history of the world. He’s so professional and safe and is really very much like a director in the way that he approaches it. He really speaks the language of film so everything’s very clear and concise and there’s no fat on any moment. I have loved the experience of working with him. Then I’ve been training with an incredible man for my weapons, Ross Upton, who has had years of active combat and has been correcting me. It’s harder than it looks to hold an assault rifle and kind of move naturally with it and it’s taken a bit of time for me to get there. But in these capable hands, it’s been an absolute pleasure and, and then there’s a whole other team in place that we’ve been working with. Everyone is at the top of their game and I’ve learned a huge amount doing this.
QUESTION: What do you hope will resonate with audiences while watching this film?
SIENNA MILLER: I think audiences are gonna get a really new take on the show. I think John, who can speak much more to this than I can, but feels like there’s much more space and time to get deeper on the characters. We’ve got the first real high speed car chase through London, which I learned recently, which is gonna be beautiful. I think ultimately you get to know the characters better and the backdrops are stunning and the action sequences are incredibly accomplished and complicated. So hopefully you have a great time, you are emotionally invested and you want more.
Andrew Bernstein, Director
Bernstein takes the baton from the small-screen showrunners and translates the franchise into cinema. He talks like a director who has thought hard about the difference between an eight-hour season and a single feature, and his references run from 1970s paranoid thrillers to the Harrison Ford pictures that introduced Jack Ryan to a generation. His insights pull the rest of the cast’s comments into a coherent shape.
QUESTION: What is it about the character of Jack Ryan that made you want to continue the story?
ANDREW BERNSTEIN: The thing that I love about the Jack Ryan character is that it’s ever changing, and especially now, it’s sort of a story of an everyman. He’s not a superhero; he’s your everyman who’s thrown into extraordinary circumstances. And within that, it allows us to explore the whole gambit of human emotions and human interactions and reactions, and relationships in a very real way, under heightened circumstances. So, it served as just a really exciting character to sort of revisit because we can do a lot with him. And I think that’s one of the exciting things we wanted to do in this movie, which was to sort of expand the vocabulary of this character.
QUESTION: Why is now the right time to bring Jack Ryan back?
ANDREW BERNSTEIN: Thematically, we are getting into this idea of the sort of black and whiteness of the world. And to sort of do what Jack does and what our character, Greer does, it’s hard to take one side or the other. You have to look at the gray areas, which is what we’re exploring in this movie. So, I think having a character that is delving into that world and figuring out where his morality lies and how far you can push things. And then whose side are you on and where’s right and wrong? Again, these are fundamental questions all over the world.
QUESTION: Can you describe Jack Ryan’s tone and style and how it differs from the series?
ANDREW BERNSTEIN: You know, one of the things about this movie that we very much wanted from the very beginning was to not have this be a direct extension of the series. We wanted it to be its own standalone movie that would attract people who liked the series, and people who hadn’t watched it. That’s the idea of the story. Visually and tonally, we wanted it to feel that way also so that it echoed what we had done before and paid homage to that but also took it in a whole different direction.
Val, who’s our DP, our amazing cinematographer and I spent a lot of time sort of talking about how we could make this movie feel different. And one of the things we got hooked on early on was taking from the ’70s spy genre that people love, movies like Three Days of the Condor and the Parallax View, and all those great movies. And also tonally, making it feel a little bit more grounded, make it feel a little bit more of the moment and a little bit more emotional, a little bit more psychological which a lot of those older movies were. So, taking Jack Ryan into places that the audience had never seen him before.
QUESTION: Introduce us to the new character of Emma played by Sienna Miller.
ANDREW BERNSTEIN: Emma is an MI6 agent played by Sienna Miller, an amazing addition to our movie. We are so lucky to have Sienna in it. She brings such an incredible talent and new vision to our story. Jack Ryan, the franchise, has really never had somebody like this before because she is an equal to Jack, if not more so; she is a foil to him. She is someone who challenges him. She’s somebody who is going to go toe to toe with him. And the exciting part about the story is that she has kind of led the same life to a degree; The pitfalls of being in this business, the highs and the lows, the emotional deprivation, the inability to have relationships. All the vulnerabilities that she’s experienced are things that Jack has experienced. And you’ll come face to face with somebody who is sort of at first, distrustful of him and through the course of the movie, they become sort of a team together to figure out what’s going on with Starling and Crown.
QUESTION: How did you up the ante in the action sequences for the film?
ANDREW BERNSTEIN: I think we’ve certainly upped the ante. I think Jack Ryan, the TV series, has done some amazing action sequences before, stuff that was really dynamic all along the way. We put them in a boat chase that’s pretty dynamic that no one’s ever seen before from this franchise. The London car chase is something we’ve never done before. The server room battle at the end of the movie while we’ve seen battles before, this is a pretty dynamic, pretty intense one all the way through.
QUESTION: Can you talk us through the Dow and Skiff boat sequence that was shot in Dubai?
ANDREW BERNSTEIN: The Dow and the Skiff boat sequence was an incredible sequence that we filmed in Dubai on the water there. It’s an incredible sort of old school boat in Dubai, and it’s this sort of centrepiece of a big boat chase that we shot there where Jack sort of is supposed to meet Nigel, a character who is sort of Sienna Miller’s character Emma’s mentor. Jack jumps into a boat, and away we go on this incredible sort of boat chase down the canals in Dubai at night with all the amazing Dubai buildings sort of off on the side. It’s a great centrepiece, not only to show off the location of Dubai, but to again put Jack in an exciting action sequence that the audience has never seen him in before.
QUESTION: How did you find Dubai as a shooting location?
ANDREW BERNSTEIN: Dubai was amazing. I mean, it’s such an interesting location because it’s known for its bling and its gloss and all the fancy things that attract people to Dubai, the beaches and the hotels, and the cars. That’s all stuff we wanted to show off, but we also wanted to show what it’s like to be in Dubai without all of that. We try to get a little bit into the underbelly, show off a little bit more of the different variations of this place. And also exploit what’s great about that place, which are the tall buildings and the lights, and all the stuff that kind of makes it exciting.
For us, what’s exciting is that we have Dubai in this movie. We have London, we have New York, and we have Washington DC, four incredibly different cities. And we sort of like to show off all those different places.
QUESTION: What were the challenges in filming the London car chase sequence?
ANDREW BERNSTEIN: The London car chase sequence was nine months in the making. One of the great things about the Jack Ryan franchise is we don’t shy away from ambition. If something’s difficult, we try to do it. And we started early on saying we want to do a big car chase in the middle of London. Of course, everyone was like, you’re crazy, that can’t happen. And we said, okay, let’s start talking to people. And we did over months, pick the places we wanted to film, which were very touristy, high-volume areas. And we ended up doing it because we have amazing people who worked tirelessly to get it done. We shot an incredible dynamic car chase through the centre of London which has never really been done before.
QUESTION: Talk about the experience of filming here in the UK?
ANDREW BERNSTEIN: The experience of shooting in the UK has been amazing. It’s been incredibly fulfilling and rewarding. It’s been cinematically beautiful. The people here have been incredible. The crews are amazing. The cast who come from here have been incredible as well. It’s the centrepiece of our movie. So we’ve spent a long time here, and they’ve been incredibly welcoming, and every angle in the city, we’ve really captured not just what you’ve seen before in movies but some new stuff as well that I think will surprise the audience.
QUESTION: What are some of the overall themes of the film?
ANDREW BERNSTEIN: I would say the biggest one is the idea of black and white in the world and how people view the world and where that gray area is and where your morality lies. Jack Ryan comes into this movie as he has been and has been forever in the canon, as someone who is very black and white. We wanted to take him on a journey where that gets upended. By the end of the movie, he’s at a very different place in terms of his view of the world and maybe there’s a gray area that he has to play in, in order to survive, in order to get things done. It was really important thematically for us to sort of explore those gray areas. And then also, we play around with themes of the idea of isolation and revenge, and loneliness a little bit, trust, and those kinds of issues that are all big parts of what it’s like to be somebody in this business.
QUESTION: Are there any fun Easter eggs that the fans can look out for in the film?
ANDREW BERNSTEIN: One of the things whether it’s an Easter egg or not, one of the things we really also want to do with this movie is harken back to the first films. Patriot Games was something we talked about from the very beginning. The Harrison Ford Jack Ryan movie, those early movies, clear and present danger, and get back to what sort of made Jack Ryan great. So hopefully, for those people who love those movies, this will be not an Easter egg, but sort of a homage a little bit to those early movies and bring it full circle back to where Jack Ryan started on screen.
QUESTION: What do you hope will resonate with audiences while watching this film?
ANDREW BERNSTEIN: Our goal is that they become more excited about Jack Ryan as a character. That was our goal from the very beginning, to learn more about who this person was, what made him tick, how he can expand his character for the audiences. And yes, there’s exciting action that’s gonna resonate with everybody, there’s gonna be great locations that will resonate with everybody, but hopefully, at the end of the day, it’s the relationships in this movie that we’ve hopefully expanded upon from the series that will resonate with people.
There’s potentially a budding romance with Emma and Jack. There’s the great love affair between Greer and Jack that we’ve seen before where they’re incredible partners together. And those are the relationships that I think audiences are gonna be excited about seeing more of, the action stuff will be great. But I think relationship wise, I think hopefully that is what’s gonna get people super excited.
Final Word
What emerges from these conversations is a film that wants to be more than a transposition of the show. Krasinski talks about combustibility, Pierce about moral compass, Kelly about a 14-year-old boy in a grown man’s backyard, Beesley about the geography of a London chase that took nine months to engineer, Miller about a tougher exterior she had to grow into, and Bernstein about the 1970s paranoid thrillers that quietly inform the camera language. Together they describe a 105-minute thriller that compresses the intensity of a season into a single arc, places Jack inside a moral gray area for the first time, and gives him a partner in Emma Marlow who can match him step for step.
The locations carry the same ambition: Dubai’s canals at night, central London’s avenues sealed off across five weekends, New York and Washington as anchor points for a story that refuses to sit still. The action set pieces, a boat chase, the car chase, a server-room standoff, are presented as new territory for the franchise. And the homage to the Harrison Ford era of Jack Ryan films is not a wink, it is a guiding star.
These exclusive interviews in Portugal arrive ahead of the film’s release. The Candey+ verdict on the picture itself will follow once the credits have rolled. For now, what the cast and director offer is a clear sense of what they were chasing on set: an everyman with a tightening clock, a friendship tested to breaking point, and a chase scene that finally puts a Jack Ryan film exactly where its earliest fans always wanted to see one: on the streets of London, with the world watching.
